Divorce
by holycricket
Summary: A young Scorpius meets the lady his daddy loves most.


A/N- This little idea was loosely inspired by Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which is written in the point of view of a seven year old boy. I wondered what it would be like to write Dramione in the same way, and this was born. Hope you enjoy. Reviews are ever appreciated.

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On a Wednesday, my daddy tells me he doesn't love my mummy anymore. I don't really understand what he means by that, though. I ask him, "Why?" and he repeats "I just don't love her anymore."

"But you're married," I say.

"Not anymore, kiddo."

I pout. I still don't understand. In every story I have ever heard, love is something that lasts forever. You can't just stop loving someone, it's not possible. I tell my daddy this, too, and he looks very sad to have heard it.

"If you stop loving mummy, doesn't that mean you can stop loving me, too?" I ask. I want him to see that he is being silly, that he has got a bad idea in his head. There is nothing on the whole, wide world that would stop me from loving him, and I know with my whole heart that there is nothing on the whole, wide world - or off of it - that will stop him from loving me.

He still looks sad though, and I feel sad, too, because I can't make him see what he needs to.

"I-" he stops, only making a small sound, and grabs me tightly. He lifts me a little and sets me directly in front of him, and he looks at me as though he is going to tell me a really, really big, dark secret, the kind that you can never repeat without having the giant Secret-Keeper monster come after you. I look right back at him, because I am not afraid of the Secret-Keeper monster. If my daddy wants to tell me a secret, I will seal my lips shut, lock them, and throw away the key. I'll do anything for my daddy, actually.

"I do love your mother," he says, and I want to jump and squeal in delight and yell "I told you so!" or "I knew it!" - but he still looks really sad, so I keep that little party inside my head. I don't want to make him even more sad. It's my job to make him happy. He grips me tighter again, as though to make sure I am still listening, and I give him the most serious listening face I have.

"But I don't love her as much anymore," he says, and my mind-party went out all of a sudden, like when you blow a flame to see it dance, and you accidentally blow too hard. Poof! The flame goes out. I am confused again, because I know you can't stop loving somebody, but I did not know that you can love them less.

"How can you change how much you love someone?" I ask. I have this all of a sudden feeling that this is very important information. Next time mummy tells me she is cross with me so that I have to stop what I am doing, maybe I can love her less, too, and it won't matter that she is cross. I will be able to keep playing, and later, when I don't want to anymore, I can love her more again.

"I don't know," my daddy says, and I giggle. Of course he knows, because he has changed how much he loved my mummy. And my daddy knows everything that there ever is to know, which means that this must be an Even Bigger Secret than before. I give him my most serious face again, because I want to know what the Even Bigger Secret is.

"It's okay, Daddy, you can tell me," I say, and he smiles at me for a second, and then looks really sad again. I don't like my daddy looking sad.  
"Well, son, the problem is that I love somebody else more than your mother," he says, and then he looks a little worried, like the face he pulls when I have hurt myself and he is waiting to see if I will cry.

"Oh," I say, and I try to concentrate. So you can't change how much you love someone, but you can love somebody a different amount to somebody else.

"Do you think you would like to meet her, Scorpius?" I look at my daddy really hard and think about it. Sometimes new old people are mean to me and tell me I am silly and that I should go play outside by myself. I know they only want me to go away so that I will miss out on all of the grown up fun. But then I remember that my daddy loves this person, and I decide that they must be pretty nice if my daddy loves them.

"Okay," I tell him. "Can she come over now?" I have nothing to do and I haven't had any new toys or people to play with probably since the beginning of time. Daddy laughs, and he says he will ask.

Five minutes later the flames in the fireplace sparkle and crackle and go so green that I am not sure green is really a colour anymore. A grown up lady with long hair that sticks out a little in strange places steps out of them and smiles at me.

"Hi, I'm Hermione," she says to me, and she sticks out her hand to shake mine.

"I am Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, it's very nice to meet you," I say, like my daddy taught me to, and I shake her hand. She laughs a little.

"That's a very long name," she says.

"You can call me Scorpius," I tell her. Someday I think I will make somebody call me Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy or Scorpius the Almighty or something really long and cool, but not today.

She smiles at me, and then she looks at my daddy and smiles, and then her cheeks go red. I think this means that she doesn't know what she should do next, so I decide to tell her.

"Will you tell me a story, please?" I say, because being told stories is my favourite thing out of all of my favourite things. She looks at me as though that is the best idea she has ever heard, and I think that maybe it is her favourite thing, too.

"Sure," she says, and she sits down on a chair by the fire. I squeeze onto the chair with her, and she begins to speak.


End file.
